Yakitori Jin Haberfield — Restaurant in Sydney

I decided to leave this review after so long because I should let others know about my experience and also there are lots of great yakitori places in Sydney. Better food and customer service.

Just skip this restaurant. Spend your hard earned money somewhere else!

Have been to this place 4 times. One was a takeaway order during Covid lockdown. I am glad I didn't give a review after the first visit ( Before Covid) because the subsequent visits were bad. Food quality was going downhill. The worse experience I had was in Christmas's Eve 2021. At the time all hospitality staff had to wear masks. We were sitting outside and barely any customer on that fateful day. Instead of being grateful during that tough time, they had about max 3 tables of patrons that Christmas's Eve, the service was minimum. We could feel it in the air that staff didn't want to be there, chef didn't want to cook nice food. Just barely making through the night - that kind of atmosphere. Sushi was soggy, aburi salmon was barely burnt. We ordered aburi salmon sushi and also salmon roe sushi (other sushi, yakitori and ramen etc). When the salmon (raw salmon) sushi arrived, we were stunned. That wasn't what we ordered and my hubby said to just let them know, see what they say. The young waiter(not Japanese and he was a regular worker there at the time) who placed our order came and we told him that we ordered salmon roe not salmon sushi. He went to check and came back with a very arrogant attitude, still remember his exact words were " I repeated the order and you said it was ok. Why are you saying that you didn't order the salmon sushi now?" I was shocked, not only that arrogant look and the tone but also I pointed to the food on the menu when I ordered so when he wore a mask and muffling the order, I heard salmon twice so I thought the second salmon he mentioned was the salmon roe. He came back with THAT attitude made us felt like we changed our mind and didn't want the salmon sushi so we accused him of placing a wrong order! Eventually we didn't want to waste the food and not to ruin our mood on Christmas's Eve, we brought the salmon sushi home.

Normally when this happens, we let the restaurant know and see what they say. Usually we get our food changed with no questions asked or when it was hard for them to change, we would just take it ( not to waste food). Never had we experienced something like this. We were dining at a local restaurant that we supported , not at the court facing a trial or at a police station that we felt like we were being accused of lying and/or making things up about an ORDER!!!

There were 2 rude, unfriendly, emotionless waiters ( not Japanese) at the time, one was this rude arrogant young guy and another older female. BOTH were not friendly and always with an arrogant smirk on their faces all the time! Having said that, all the other Japanese waitresses were all very nice and polite.

Possibly they are not working there anymore, we still decide not to come back to this place. There are lots of other Japanese yakitori places that serve NICE food with great customer service.

We understand the tough period that everyone was facing during Covid especially the hospitality industry. To be treated like a pathetic liar about an order was totally unacceptable. Plus what kind of owner who would hire staff like this? The guy who went in to report the incident (with support and approval from owner and/or manager) and came back with an attitude like that ? That said a lot about the owner and/or manager of the restaurant. Just...

First time eating here with an early dinner, we only booked the day before, but it was the only booking we could get I think. Must be a popular place.

The food service was fast. We particularly enjoyed the Karage chicken and cold waggu beef entrees- they were really delicious. The rest of the food was a little on the average side, though it was nice enough. The spicy chicken ramen was eaten by one of the others in our group- they felt the broth was a little flavourless with the punch of chilli flakes on top which got caught in the back of the throat.

The general atmosphere of the venue was boutique and nice, the staff friendly and helpful. The things which really made the experience uncomfortable and put a real dampening on the atmosphere itself was the venue policy for time limits and staff pushiness to get you finished and out of there.

The front door has a sign that booking slots were 90mins, but we weren't given that amount of time at the booking - it was less. As soon as we sat down, we were reminded we needed to be out of there by a certain time. We could see the staff were stressing out because all of our group weren't sitting at the table looking at the menus at the time we booked, some of our friends were running 15 mins late.

We were given a final drinks and food order warning part way through our meal, like it was a pub with a close of business time, and 10mins before the end of our time slot we were reminded again that we only had 10mins left - I think because we were chatting and there was still food on our plates. The bill was placed on the table 5mins before the allocated time was finished.

The worse thing about all this- the place was half empty with empty tables. There were no queues out the door. And yes, maybe they had another booking for that table straight after us- but there were no others there lining up to take our table when we left spot on the time they wanted us out.

So for all the friendliness and helpfulnees of the staff, the atmosphere was actually uncomfortable and unfriendly from those same staff- it felt like 'we're happy to feed you, look after your needs and take your money, but order and eat quickly and leave- there's no time for friendly banter amongst yourselves or relax and enjoy- you're on a time limit'

This is not a place I'm likely to go back...

The bustling and convivial Haberfield streetscape should lift your mood as you duck below the drapes to enter Yakitori Jin. This popular suburban restaurant is a yakitori specialist, meaning the glass-enclosed kitchen runs quite hot. As the chefs sweat in their steamy kitchen, you can sit back and sip Yoshinosugi no Tarusake omachi-yamahai junmai-shu sake ($31/300ml). Its dominant note is cedar, fitting the restaurant’s sauna theme. From a handwritten menu, the 90-minute table limit sees us quickly assemble a feast of slightly-too-epic proportions.

Kicking off with a 9-piece sashimi platter ($26) we’re treated to ruby red tuna, firm kingfish, and salmon, plus scallops and snapper marinated in white soy. It’s fresh and tasty, if somewhat chunky in places. Equally hard to stuff in your mouth, MBS 9+ wagyu nigiri sushi ($16/4) is inelegant to eat but very delicious. It’s plucked from the specials board that also produces my dish of the night—five spice whiting tempura ($12)—pinned in the bowl in a lifelike curl.

The premium omakase yakitori ($37) arrives piecemeal, starting with tomato and camembert cheese. As we move through multiple types of chicken, momo negi shio ($6/each)—thigh with salt sauce—proves so salty it’s almost impossible to like. Pickles accompanying a folded dashi maki egg omelet ($14) and another flask of sake provide a modicum of relief. After that I eye all future sticks, including a creamy king prawn ($6/each) accompanied by a small mound of salt, with suspicion. However the only other misstep proves to be overzealous charring on the shiitake mushrooms stuffed with chicken mince ($5/each). Most other skewers, from quail eggs ($5/each) to wagyu tri tip ($10/each) to enoki pork ($5/each) prove easy to share.

We made the mistake of ordering one stick each where we should have just shared, which passed without any staff intervention. Rookie error. The slightly high bill was moderated somewhat by being able to bring...